


A Plethora of Wild Dragons (and one child)

by Storm_Dragon



Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Child Abandonment, dragons try to raise a baby, good luck with that, rescuing a child from a river
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-03-19
Packaged: 2019-04-04 12:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14020254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storm_Dragon/pseuds/Storm_Dragon
Summary: Normally, when a dragon and a human meet and one of them is a baby, it's the dragon, and the dragon and human (captain) will go on to serve whichever country it is that they were in the hands of when they hatched. Nobody ever said anything about what a dragon is supposed to do when suddenly saddled with taking care of a human baby that they found floating down the river.Now, poor Solaris must try her hardest to keep this egg/hatchling/thing alive so that it can grow up into adulthood, somehow give it an education when it seems dead-set on not learning anything, and (eventually) try and return it to human society. Great, sounds easy. "What do you even eat? You have no teeth!" Or not.Here's to hoping that this poor kid actually makes it past infancy.





	A Plethora of Wild Dragons (and one child)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm no professional writer, so don't expect a perfect work out of me. This idea came to me out of pretty much nowhere, and I decided to write about it. I hope you enjoy this plot bunny of mine.

It was very rare to find feral dragons in Europe nowadays, all unharnessed dragons usually winding up in the breeding grounds. It was not unheard of, however, for dragons to take up residence elsewhere.

  
That was exactly what happened in a certain mountain range of Slovakia.

  
The first dragon to take up residence was Pechuer Raye, followed shortly after by a stray Berghexe, and soon enough, dragons cast out of the world due to the war found their way there; a Felcha-Del-Fuego, a supposedly failed hybrid, A Pascal’s Blue, a ‘useless’ Jade dragoness, and an escaped Grey Copper.

  
Now, little did the dragons know, their sanctuary was about to receive its newest member.

  
These dragons were an odd bunch, to be sure. Even though they were wild, they were not the least bit feral.

  
It had been the idea of the Jade to create pavillions for themselves by carving into the steep mountainsides, and after that they’d begun to have more ideas. With the two middleweights and five lightweights present, they would also need a food source. So, logically, the next step had been to clear out a flat area and make a nice, big 'pasture' in order to contain a food source.

  
So they’d went, gotten a bunch of deer and dropped them in. After recovering from the trauma, the deer began to eat and reproduce, and the dragons felt that they’d done a good job. They defended against other ferals from time to time and ran off curious humans every now and again, but otherwise they lived a peaceful life, out of reach of the war.

  
Of course, the humans still were nearby; there was a town close enough to their sanctuary that they had to be watchful for unwanted visitors, and not all humans were as civilized, kind, or caring as others.

  
Which is probably why the Plein Vite/Flamme De Gloire hybrid Solaris found herself in her current predicament.

  
The lightweight dragoness had been out to stretch her wings and get a nice, cool drink when she’d heard the most _horrible_ squalling noise. She had ignored it at first, thinking it to be some kind of dying animal. Her effort seemed to be futile as it drew nearer and nearer as the seconds went by. Finally, she stood up to go find the source of the noise. This, however, proved to be unnecessary; the source of the noise had come to her.

  
It had floated down the river in a basket, and Solaria was horribly confused. Why was a basket screaming?

  
“How peculiar.” She frowned and, preparing herself for the cold, waded into the frigid river. She shivered and stretched her wings up and out to keep them above the water, and gently plucked the basket up by the handle before she turned around and sprang for the shore. She dropped the basket gently to the earth and shook like a dog. “That’s freezing! No wonder all of the others have always warned me about swimming in the springtime. I can’t imagine what trying to swim during the winter would be like… God please spare me from that.”

  
Her miniature rant over, she turned to the basket and sniffed it. “How odd. It almost smells like a human.”

  
Of course, at this moment a tiny pink thing (a hand, she realized) reached up to bat at her nose and the wailing turned into happy coos. Her eyes went wide.  
“You cannot be serious. I’ve heard of what human hatchlings look like, but why would one be here?” She narrowed her eyes at it. “You, why are you so tiny?”  
It made a cooing noise.

  
“Did no one speak to you while you were in the egg?” She questioned, slightly appalled. “How cruel. Why are you so small and flabby? Oh my, you don’t have any teeth, either. Are you defective?”

  
It made several noises and continued batting at her nose. She sighed. “What am I even supposed to do with you? You clearly can’t walk. Are all human hatchlings like this? They must be, because the description I got from Lacrima seems to be accurate enough. And what on earth were you doing in the river? Don’t tell me somebody dropped you.”

  
“Beeeh!” It giggled and poked at her nose again, and in defense she moved her head back a bit. “Hmm… You’re certainly a strange one. I’m shocked you were let out of your mother’s sight. How old are you? Clearly, you’re not self-sufficient yet, you probably barely hatched. Oh! You must be so cold.” She spat a stream of fire onto a bush nearby and moved them closer to it, shifting anything else flammable out of burning distance with her tail.

  
Then she paused.

  
“What am I even supposed to _do_ with you?”

  
“Beeh!” It didn’t seem to have anything helpful to say.

  
“Do you have a name yet?”

  
“Buh-buuuh!”

  
“That is not a name. Hmm… If you did have one, I would not know it… Ah, there’s a note!” She plucked it up with her claws, gently as she could, careful not to scratch the baby, and then lowered her eye close to try and read it before an important fact registered in her memory.

  
“Oh, right. I can't read. In that case, this is useless.” She dropped it on the fire. “But if there was a note, then that means this was probably done on purpose. What kind of cruel twisted human would do this to such a helpless hatch… no, this is practically an egg.” She stared at it seriously. “One should never leave eggs unattended. You have to keep eggs warm,” Her eyes flickered to the fire. “And then watch over them until they hatch.”

  
She scowled. “But then again, this is technically a hatchling… so don’t I need to feed it?” More pondering. “But what do you even eat? You have no teeth! Oh, what a conundrum.”

  
“Bleeeh!”

  
“Yes, that is very helpful.” She frowned. “In any case… humans need food, water, and clothing. They also need to be kept within a certain range of temperatures…” She remembered how her captain had always kept himself warm or cooled himself off whenever temperatures became uncomfortable. “Hmm… perhaps it would be best to return it to the humans…”

  
Then her eyes flickered back to where she’d thrown the note in the fire. “Well, I could, but the blasted things just threw it in the river. If I returned it, they’d probably just throw it back. Perhaps I should discuss this with Lacrima. Oh, but what will happen to it if I leave it? And if I fly it back, what if it gets too cold? It’s tiny and fragile, so I can’t be too rough with it, and it can’t hold its own heat well can it?”

  
“Solaris, is something wrong?” She turned to see the massive form of a Berghexe coming in for landing and hissed, flaring her wings out agitatedly. “Do be careful! I’ve found a human egg/hatchling/thing in the river and I don’t know what to do with it, but if you land too near you might scare it and make it start screeching again.”

  
He landed as gently as he could on the other side of the river, tread through it, and moved to take a closer look. “How odd. It’s tiny. Whyever was it in the river, of all places?”  
“There was a note with it, but none of us could read so I burned it. But if there was a note left with it, the cursed humans probably put it there and left it.”

  
“How cruel. Perhaps I could get Lacrima? She might know what to do about it." He suggested.

  
“No,” Solaris frowned. “I just need to figure out how to safely move it. I can’t stay out here with it forever; it would likely be far happier in my nice warm pavilion.”  
“Just… pick it up and move it. It’s already in a basket, and easy to carry.”

  
“Yes but what if it falls out or gets too cold?”

  
“How else are you going to move it? You fret too much.”

  
She sighed. “I suppose. Thank you for the help, Caseius.” She lifted it up in her jaws. “Could you put out the fire, please?”

  
He proceeded to stomp on it. “Is that better?”

  
“Very much so, thank you. I will see you again later.” She spread her wings and, as carefully as she could, lifted off.

  
It was odd to have to be mindful of a passenger again, after having been without one for so long. She had lost her captain when he’d been hit by friendly fire straight off her back six years ago, and hadn’t spoken a word to another human after. Now that she had this little thing that had washed up… what was she supposed to do with it? She couldn’t leave it there, and it wasn’t safe to bring it back upriver… but having her, a dragon, take care of a human hatchling was an idea straight out of hell.

  
She flew gently and far more slowly than she usually did all the way back to her pavilion, a cavern-like structure with columns at the entrance carved into the face of a mountain with a nice, wide pathway leading down to a landing/takeoff platform flattened out below it. She’d made it comfortable to live in, digging out places to light fires to keep her nice and warm, with multiple rooms if she wanted them. In one of the rooms she kept all her treasures, from her harness (intact, still, and as well-maintained as she could keep it), to the pretty mother of pearl, silver, and albite collar that had once decorated her neck. He had spent a lot on it, and she had always been humbled by it. Now, though, she didn’t wear it for fear she would ruin it, not to mention that she couldn’t fasten the clasp herself. She kept many things she found in there too. In another room, she had filled it with soft animal furs for very cold winter days, and also had a small (protected, of course) fire pit in the middle. She would be putting the egg in there, because it was warm enough to keep it.

  
Solaris landed lightly on the platform and walked steadily up into her pavilion. She made it through the main chamber, with fires still glowing dimly in the trenches lining the edges of the room (she would have to put more fuel in and re-light them later) and then up a slight incline and into the chamber she was looking for.  
She set the egg’s basket down gently and, very, very carefully, lifted up the egg and set it down.

  
The egg, which had been sleeping, now woke up with a cooing sound, and she noticed with disgust that the blanket had been soiled. She promptly tossed it into the fire pit. _I will have to house train it_ , she supposed.

  
It was filthy now, and she sighed as she realized that she would have to wash it. She lifted it up (grimacing as feces got on her claws), noted that it was a male, and then trotted into another chamber.

  
She did, as a matter of fact, have water inside of her pavilion. It ran out from a spring atop the mountain, and all of the pavilions had streams of it running through them and into large pools, which then ran off down the mountainside. She plunked it down in the shallows and watched it squirm around a bit, then stuck her claw in to paw off the waste. The water there was strictly for bathing in anyways; if she wanted to drink it, she would drink from the small waterfall that ran into the pool. She used it to bathe in herself, after all.

  
It had been a habit that Velocissima, the Jade Dragon, had started upon joining them. She had stated that no dragon should be as filthy as the ones she’d always encountered, and that grooming was vital in caring for their scales. She had promptly lectured them all on cleanliness and from then on it was all a sealed deal.  
Now how was she supposed to wash off this human baby?

  
“Hmm… If I recall correctly…” Her captain always used a cloth to wipe himself down when he bathed. She remembered that much. A cloth…

  
Her mind flickered to the furs. No, the furry part wouldn’t do, but Lacrima had a thing called leather…

  
“What are you doing? Get your head out of the water, you’ll drown!” She pushed it back, and it giggled stupidly. “I cannot take my eyes off you for one second!”

  
“Is there a problem?” A very much welcome voice sounded from the entryway, and she turned to see the face of a Pechuer Raye sticking into the cavern. “Is that a baby?” The much-welcome voice had risen to incredulousness at the last observation.

  
“Ah, is that what human hatchlings are called? Yes, I found it in the river. It soiled itself, so I was trying to clean it off, but I don’t know how.” She frowned. "I don't want to dirty my claws anymore, and I also don't want to cut it to ribbons, so trying to do it without some kind of cloth or something would be horribly foolish."

  
“Well,” She frowned, “It will certainly be difficult without thumbs. My Captain used to lord it over me that he had them and I didn’t for good reason, after all. Do you have a cloth to do it with?”

  
“Just the furs in my winter-chamber.” She replied. “I had wanted to go ask you, but there’s no way I can take a moment away from this thing. It'll drown itself at this rate.”  
“Why not send it back where it came from?” Lacrima asked, sounding quite pained.

  
“It came with a note in a basket floating down the river; well-arranged, too. Someone put it there.” Solaris argued. "It was probably the humans. If I put it back in the village, they'll just drop it in the river again. They're horribly irresponsible, you know."

  
“I would ask what the note said, but none of us can read.” Lacrima replied, a drawn-out sigh leaving her maw. “I’ll ask Velocissima to go to the human town and get something to use. Don’t leave it in the water too long, or it’ll shrink.”

  
“Even more?” Solaris gasped with alarm. “How long is too long? I don't think it'll survive if it gets any smaller than this. My captain never said anything about humans shrinking in water before! How could he have overlooked something this important?"

  
“As soon as it starts wrinkling, it’s been in there a bit too much. Take it out then. Oh, and be mindful to make sure it keeps its head above the water, it needs to breathe." Without bothering to attempt answering the other questions, the blue dragon removed her head from the cave's entrance and retreated into the main chamber. With that, the conversation was over.

  
Solaris looked down at the ‘baby’ in despair.

  
“Egg, you are more trouble than you’re worth.”

  
"Bleeeh!"

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is how the human baby joins a rather unconventional family of dragons. Solaris doesn't know what to do with it, Lacrima doesn't know what to do with Solaris, and poor Caseius doesn't know what to do with himself.  
> As for the dragon names, Lacrima means Tear, Velocissima means the fastest, Solaria means Sun, and Caseius means cheese.  
> Yes, I named a dragon cheese. He does not look like cheese, and there was no basis for that name. It just is his name, and the poor guy can't do anything about it, so don't bully him for it. The other mentioned dragons will be making an appearance soon enough, don't you worry.  
> In any case, I hope you enjoyed the chapter enough to read more in the future.


End file.
